In looking back on my own writing over the course of this past year, I can see that I (like most bloggers in varying degrees) sometimes had the tendency to overstate the case. For example, there were some harsher statements about Bill and Hillary Clinton than they deserved. Hey, that is what happens when we get on our electronic soapbox. I regarded some of their public statements against Obama – when Senators Obama and Clinton were competing for the Democratic presidential nomination – as offensive and unworthy of accomplished public officials. Then again, many of our most admired political leaders throughout American history engaged in much worse political claptrap than anything either of the Clintons said or did in this campaign. It is easy to lose perspective.
If Obama did not run for president, or if his campaign fizzled out at the beginning, I could have comfortably supported Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, or Chris Dodd for president. They are all good people, and I think that any of them would have made a good president, although I always believed that Obama was the best available candidate. Once it became apparent that either Obama or Clinton would be the nominee, Joe Biden was my first choice for vice-president, and I was glad to see him get the job.
I was much less comfortable with Hillary Clinton as a candidate, although I almost certainly would have voted for her over any Republican nominee this year. Part of my problem with Mrs. Clinton as president is that, for all of her obvious intelligence and knowledge of the issues, she did a very poor job with her healthcare reform efforts in 1993. Her only experience in actually running anything did not go well at all. Later on, I was also appalled by what I regarded as very obnoxious behavior on her part toward Barack Obama. On reflection, I probably made too much of that at the time.
Many Obama supporters were admirers of John Edwards, but I cannot agree at all on the merits of Mr. Edwards. If he had won the Democratic nomination, I still am not sure if I could have brought myself to vote for him over Senator McCain. Many people admire Edwards for his calling public attention to poverty in America, noting that most politicians at least claim to be fighting for the middle class (where most Americans, including yours truly, identify themselves). Few politicians, other than those representing districts with high rates of poverty, talk about poverty at all, and it is arguably to Mr. Edwards’ credit that he raises the issue. That may be true, but I also believe that his policies would in the long run be disastrous for the people he is allegedly trying to help. The other problem I had with Edwards was his grandstanding about being the only candidate willing to “take on corporate America.” That strikes me as very similar to when Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin talked about the “real Americans,” as opposed to those of us who are apparently fake Americans. In the case of both John Edwards and Sarah Palin, it appeared to me that if they could have their way, a major segment of the American population would not be welcome to have their views represented in Washington. As far as the later revelations about Mr. Edwards’ philandering were concerned, I was just relieved that he had made himself politically irrelevant.
The other two Democrats seeking the presidency at the beginning of the year, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, were both political jokes as far as I was concerned, and did not need to be taken seriously.
Among the Republicans running for president, I thought that John McCain was their best candidate. I liked him in 2000, when he competed with George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination. As in the case of Hillary Clinton, I was more negative in my comments about John McCain during 2008 than he probably deserved. McCain is basically a good person. On the other hand, I doubt that he would have made a good president. My biggest single objection to McCain as president was that he intended to appoint more right wing judges to the Supreme Court (and presumably the other federal courts). Thanks to a concerted effort by Republican presidents over the past generation, the courts are already overrepresented by right wing judges. McCain and all the other Republicans seeking the presidency this year were dedicated to continuing that trend. In varying ways, I thought that the other Republican presidential contenders, with the exception of Ron Paul, had all of McCain’s faults and none of his virtues. I do not think that Ron Paul would make a good president, and he never had a realistic chance for his party’s nomination, but I still like the guy. In a way, he is the conscience of his party, a reminder of conservatism’s libertarian roots.
As an amateur student of American history and the presidency, I have become persuaded that one of the qualities common to our better presidents has been a strong sense of history. The good presidents have understood what worked in the past, and what didn’t work, and they knew how to apply the lessons from the past to the present situation. A good president also has to be a good manager. He (or, some day, she) cannot be much better, although it is possible to be much worse, than the people he hires for his cabinet and White House staff. He has to be able to delegate a lot of the work to these people, but at the same time the ultimate responsibility is his. I think that Barack Obama has the qualities that can make him a great president [Whether or not things actually turn out that way, we will not know for quite some time]. He is a big reader of history and related subjects, and some of his reading choices have been exactly what I would have recommended, in the event that he was to solicit my opinion. He is surrounding himself with very talented and knowledgeable people. It also at least appears that he wants honest advice from these people, as opposed to some presidents who have tended to ignore or dismiss advisors who dared to tell the president anything that conflicted with his own preconceived ideas. The president should encourage spirited debate among his advisors, but once the policy has been decided, those same advisors should be able to publicly support the president, or else resign. If a particular advisor finds that the president no longer values his input, he should resign. It seemed to me that Colin Powell should have resigned as Bush’s Secretary of State long before he actually left the job, rather than continue to publicly support a policy he knew was wrong.
As Obama takes office on January 20, some of the challenges he faces will be formidable. I hope that the Obama presidency will focus on long term solutions to problems. This applies to a lot of areas, but I am thinking specifically about the economy. Much of the current economic crisis is the result of people and institutions pursuing short term goals. As long as asset prices were rising, investors and home owners benefited from highly leveraged deals. The Detroit-based auto makers emphasized the SUVs and light trucks because that was where the profits were best. A few years ago, Congress even passed a law giving tax favored treatment to businesses that bought SUVs (as opposed to ordinary passenger cars). Managers at investment banks and industrial corporations were paid huge bonuses based on short term results. All these things seemed to help keep the economy humming along… for awhile. The pursuit of short term results is often contrary to the longer term interest. A company that cuts out (or drastically reduces) spending on maintenance or on research and development can make one quarterly income statement look good, but it is likely to have a negative impact on its future. I think it is likely that the economy will get worse, maybe for a year or so, before it gets better, and I hope that Obama (and Congress) will have the wisdom to avoid the kind of quick fixes that seem to address some problem, but which make the situation much worse in the long run. For example, they should resist their protectionist inclinations, even though there could be a political price to pay.
Anyway, having supported Barack Obama’s candidacy from the beginning, I got what I wished for. My candidate got elected, along with my preferred choice for vice-president. I hope that I will continue to be pleased with the election results in the years to come.
